A modern vehicle may be equipped with pedestrian protection means or devices, such as a deployable bonnet and/or or one or more airbags covering the windscreen and/or the A-pillars of the vehicle. Such protection means are intended to mitigate the consequences for a vulnerable road user, e.g. a pedestrian or a cyclist, if a collision with the vehicle occurs. A collision between the vulnerable road user and the vehicle may be detected by a contact-based sensor and the pedestrian protection means may be activated. However, some of the protection means are irreversible, e.g. a pyro-technical bonnet lifter or an inflatable airbag, and thus need to be replaced after use. This may lead to costly repairs and/or vehicle user dissatisfaction. There is therefore a desire to avoid activating an irreversible protection means, if it will not help to mitigate the consequence of a collision.
Document US 2007/0228705 A1 discloses a method of comprising:
scanning a frontal zone with a pre-crash sensing system and generating a pre-crash signal;
classifying a collision in response to the pre-crash signal;
determining a pre-crash collision confidence factor; and
when the confidence factor is high, deploying a restraint system in pre-collision mode;
when the confidence factor is low, confirming a collision with vehicle collision sensors and deploying the restraint system in collision mode.
In addition to the pre-crash sensing system, the vehicle described in US 2007/0228705 comprises a contact-based sensor having a predetermined threshold. If an impact is determined with a severity over the predetermined threshold, the method completes the activation of the safety devices of the restraint system.